Beta: ShadowMester234
It really was amazing how dark it could get down in the underground. A veil of darkness promising to devour anything that entered. With the only thing halting its approach being the border of their own little campfire lit world.
Jaune spotted a set of glowing eyes in the distance and sealed the window with a blanket cover, trying to keep any light from passing through. There might not be a massive amount of grimm down here, but lighting a beacon to attract them all wasn't something he wanted to do.
Time had been short to find shelter after they had woken up, and there was really only one place they could get to that they knew wouldn't be crawling with grim. The train station wasn't ideal. It only had one floor and multiple entrances so it wasn't as easily defendable as their last camp. That meant they had to post a watch which at least avoided the awkward question of if they were going to sleep together again.
Jaune had taken the first shift since he doubted he would have been able to sleep anyways, despite barely being able to keep his eyes open. Emerald was probably the same way, but she had reluctantly agreed to try. Judging from the shuffling he kept hearing, she wasn't making much progress.
Maybe that made sense since, technically, they had been sleeping up until half an hour ago, but sleep was supposed to rest the body along with the mind, and he was pretty positive his mind didn't get any rest while trapped in that illusion.
Emerald had told him everything that happened on her end, and he was still trying to process it. It had pretty much been decided that there was no third caretaker and it had all been the echoes' doing, or a very specific echo if what Emerald saw was right. It was probably the reason why all the other echoes were acting extraordinary since they were tangentially connected to each other.
Everything he had read about echoes made it clear they weren't supposed to be able to haunt your dreams. They hadn't even found a solution that problem, and now they were confronted with the fact they could be trapped in one even if they were still awake. They were able to escape it thanks to Emerald's semblance, but there was no guarantee that would work again.
Keeping on the defensive was a losing strategy anyways. Even if Emerald could beat it back every time. Eventually, they would collapse from exhaustion or the grimm would get to them while they were still trapped. Perhaps that was its plan. If it couldn't kill them in the illusionary world then having them experience enough negativity to alert the grimm would do the job. If that was the case then they really had been lucky to not attract the grimm for upwards of five hours.
Actually, that wasn't right, there was no they could have survived on luck alone. Something must have help in preventing the grimm from finding them.
Jaune tapped his fingers along the windowsill while he thought and couldn't help but smile when he came up with the answer. It was the echoes themselves that kept them from being noticed. This entire city was awash in negativity because of them, so of course the grimm would have trouble noticing anyone else's. Though, that all went out the window if the grimm were close enough, so it was a good thing they had killed all the nearby grimm before then.
Why had they done that again? Oh yeah, he had attracted them all when he had been thinking about Roman and his complete knowledge over everything he did.
Okay, it was time to quickly get off that train of thought! No more thinking about how Roman had inadvertently saved their lives. If Emerald ever found out, he'd never hear the end of it.
Back to thinking of solutions. They had to get rid of that echo. Roman had mentioned spells that could destroy a single echo, and Jaune had looked into them, but not only was he skeptical they'd work on that abnormal echo, but it also felt like a waste. While its existence was clearly bad for them, it also presented an opportunity.
Their goal was to rid Mt. Glenn of every single echo, and up until now they had been running around without a clue. The biggest problem being that they didn't know how to overwrite an echo's negative memory with a happy one, but step one of the problem may have been solved.
The echoes had been able to influence them since night one, but they hadn't been able to do anything to them in reverse. With this special echo that had changed, Emerald had proven it. They had an access point. If they could turn it around and make that echo believe in a positive memory, then Jaune was sure that would be enough to infect the whole population. It would be like taking out the general of an army.
It was a good start, but what could they show it? Implanting something generic wouldn't work. That wouldn't sway the echo any more than it had swayed him when he was trapped. It was the personal stuff that got to him. Terra's anger and Emerald's abandonment, it was those things that made him worry and scared. Played on his biggest fears and made him doubt himself. Made him believe that it might be real.
That's what they had to hit it with. Something personal, something that tugged on the heartstrings and made everything real. The belief didn't have to last long, only for moment, just enough time for that echo to forget the tragedy that made it an echo in the first place. If only they had anything like that.
To do that they would need to know something about it, and that information was severely lacking. This really did seem like their best course of action, though. They just needed a way to fish that information out.
"Jaune, would you stop doing whatever you're doing. I'm trying to sleep over here," Emerald yelled.
Jaune jumped, realizing that he had still been drumming his finger against the windowsill while he'd been lost in thought. It must have been pretty annoying. "Sorry."
Emerald groaned, lay back down on her sleeping bag then immediately changed her mind and rose to join him. "It doesn't matter. I wasn't going to be able to sleep anyways."
"You should at least try," Jaune said with some hint of worry noticing the beginning of eye bags.
"I did, it didn't work. I don't know what changed but I feel like I can sense them now. Just hovering around me waiting for me to slip away."
"I'm pretty sure it's only in your head."
"You're probably right, but it doesn't make it any less uncomfortable. I know they're there, so maybe my brain just made something up to confirm it."
"I don't blame you. Even I'm getting the sense that the echoes are more agitated. We poked the big boss and now he's sending his minions after us."
"As if that hadn't already been happening, and what's with this "we" business? I'm the one that put it in its place. You were busy with your beauty sleep."
"Are you seriously going to fight me over who deserves the credit? We're partners, it doesn't matter who did what."
"Spoken like some who hasn't done anything. Maybe it's time you hand over the book and I take charge."
"Careful what you say or I might actually take you up on that offer, enforcer."
Emerald growled at the designation Whitley had given her. "Did you ever get ahold of the little snowflake."
"No, we're just going to have to wait until the next contact point. We can't risk missing that one either because we're going to need his help."
"Help in what way? We're still good on supplies."
"I've come up with a plan, but for it to work we need as much information about that special echo as possible and we aren't in a position to do any research. Whitley, however, has more than enough resources to do some digging."
"And what do you expect him to find, exactly? Putting aside what you even need this information for, Mt. Glenn was a tragedy on a massive scale. I don't think there's going to be a compressive list of every casualty. Even if there was, how would Whitley find the one we're looking for?"
"This echo is a special case, so whoever created it must have been a special case as well," Jaune answered.
"I'm sure that's totally something that would be in their profile," Emerald said sarcastically. "I hate to say this, but you're expecting too much of Whitley. He's going to need a name to go off of, or at the bare minimum, a description."
"Then we'll just have to get that."
"How do you plan on doing that?"
"You're not going to like it."
"I don't doubt it," she murmured, gazing off to the side. "What are you going to do?"
Jaune held out his hand and his journal appeared in it. "I'm going to put my knowledge of etches to the test."
Jaune explained his idea while he meticulously drew a rather large etch in the center of the room.
"You were right," Emerald said from her spot on one of the desks, "I don't like this. This is stupid and reckless, and think you should reconsider."
"You have any better ideas?"
"No, but just because we don't have an alternative right now doesn't mean you should jump into the most dangerous one."
"If I could I would try to think of something else, but we're running out at of time. We've only really lost one night of sleep so far, but I can already feel it and I know you can too. At this rate we have one, maybe two, more days before we're completely drained. I would rather do this now while I can still think.
"Then let's head back to Vale. We can spend a night there then come back."
"I told you what Whitley said. The Atlas military will pick up on it if there's an unknown flight from Vale to Mt. Glenn and back."
"They won't notice one extra trip," Emerald argued.
"Probably not, but we can't risk it. Nobody's supposed to come out here let alone two teenagers. If they catch us, we're definitely going to be arrested."
"Whitley would cover for us. It's not like we're actually doing anything illegal."
"They'd still keep an eye on us. We wouldn't be able to return to Mt. Glenn."
"Does it really matter? This is Roman's problem. If he wants the echoes out of here so badly he can do it himself."
Jaune signed as he put the finishing touches on the etch, checking his notes to make sure everything was right. At least, what he believed would be right. "Just drop it, Emerald."
"I won't! What does Roman even what this place for? It can't be for anything good. Are you okay with that?"
"It doesn't matter what Roman has planned. It doesn't even matter that this was his request. This is what caretakers do. Good or bad this is my job."
"You say that now but you don't know what the consequences will be. Assuming that you don't just die right here."
"Roman's a thief not a monster. Besides there's no one here, who could he hurt?"
"You're just not thinking creatively enough," Emerald said trying one last time.
"I'm done arguing about this," Jaune replied. "I'll be leaving now. Destroy the etch and wake me up in an hour or if something happens to my body." Jaune stepped into the etch.
"Wait!" Emerald said, jumping off the desk and grabbing his wrist. "Let me go instead. With my semblance, I can fight back."
"That's exactly why you need to stay here. It's already proven you don't need to be asleep for the echo to affect you. If my plan fails and it attacks the person outside the etch then you can bat it away and then help me. If it's the other way around though, we'd both be trapped."
Jaune gently lifted Emerald hand away from his wrist and headed to the center of the etch. "Just promise you'll be careful." He heard her say.
"I promise I'll try to be careful." She didn't laugh at that like he thought she would. Not even a little.
Jaune lay down in the center of the etch. It wasn't active just yet since he had left a single stroke unconnected in the center. Once he filled it in there was no going back. They would see one way or another if this worked as intended. The etch he had drawn wasn't extremely complicated, at least by his standards. In essence, it was only a gravitational etch drawn to pull inward, in other words, towards him. It was the sub-effects that he had added that made this etch special, and that was where his knowledge and certainty became fuzzy.
Through massive amounts of practice, he had gotten all the standard Tactillan symbols down. The ones he was using now, however, were unfamiliar. When he had been doing his initial testing, they hadn't seemed to do anything, but according to the book, the combination of etches he had laid out were supposed to set the etch to affect the mind. What Jaune had taken that to mean was that it switched the etch's target from physical to mental. So, with all the put together, theoretically, the etch he had created should be "to pull the mind inward."
The plan, as Jaune saw it, was to use this etch to pull all the surrounding echoes into his mind. It was a crude method but without a way to target the echo he wanted directly, this was the only solution. Doing it this way would also hopefully have the added benefit of giving him more control. These echoes were capable of hijacking people's mind and imposed their own memories taking away any freewill. Basically, it was just a really immersive movie.
With that special echo, however, it had been different. Emerald had been able to fight back because she wasn't trapped in anyone's specific memory. She had her own body and even her own power. The hope was that by forcing all the echoes in at once the clashing and colliding memories would create enough chaos for Jaune to do the same. From there he could browser the memories like a catalog and find the information he was looking for. That special echo had already shown it was possible to pry into his memories, so all he was trying to do was replicate it.
Now, it didn't take much to recognize that this plan had a ton of holes in it. Some big enough to swallow Mt. Glenn, and Jaune wasn't oblivious to them. Starting with the etch itself "to pull the mind inward" was pretty ambiguous. In a perfect world, a defect in the etch would just mean it didn't work at, but the world was not so kind. It was possible that "mind" was more literal than he believed and his brain would actually just collapse in on itself once the etch was activated, or despite being made to only target consciousness, which was all the echoes were, Emerald's mind could still be pulled into his leaving them both defenseless. Even if the etch works exactly how he intended, there were still issues. The main one being that he had no idea what would actually happen when he tried cramping an unknown number of echoes inside his head. He might just die on the spot, or the special echo might not even be caught which would make this entire thing pointless.
A thousand ways for it to go wrong and only one way for it to work out. Little wonder Emerald was so nervous. Jaune probably had better odds of surviving if he actually pointed a gun to his head and fired, but he wouldn't get anywhere by playing it safe. He was just going to have to put his faith in his theory and instinct. Still, even by his standards this was beyond reckless Probably should complete the etch before he lost his nerve.
"Alright, I'm off. Wish me luck." He didn't wait for Emerald to start berating him again. With the chalk in his hand, he connected the final stroke of the etch and closed his eyes, hoping that it wouldn't be for the last time.
There were so many colors. Like fireworks going off under his eyelids. They were shapeless but vibrant. Some spots felt like they were pulling him forward, and he found he didn't want to resist. But! Before he did anything, he had to orientate.
My name is Jaune Arc. I'm currently sharing my mind with possibly hundreds of other consciousnesses. My goal is to get any information I can out of a special echo so I and my partner, Emerald, can clear Mt. Glenn of all echoes.
Good, his sense was self was still intact. That alone was a major hurdle that he hadn't be guaranteed to overcome. He just had to make sure it stayed intact. Everything was fine now, but that wasn't likely to last when he got into the thick of things. He had to remember. Forgetting would strip him of any power he had here.
My name is Jaune Arc. I'm currently…
He kept repeating those words to himself and would continue to do so. For now, though, he needed to find his target. He wasn't really sure how to go about that, but since he was after the strongest echo it would probably be reasonable to head towards the strongest pull.
Although moving in this world wasn't as easy as that. Firstly, he didn't really have a body to move, but it didn't feel like he was floating to his destination either. It was hard, if not impossible to explain, it didn't even feel like he was traveling at all. More like he was a passenger in a perfectly stable vehicle. The only way he could even tell he was crossing any distance at all was because of the pull he was feeling from multiple sources. All of them were getting stronger, not all at the same rate, but some were certainly eclipsing others.
Was this the results of all the echoes fighting with each other? Well, maybe "fighting" wasn't a good description, but there was definitely a war going on inside his head. A war of influence to decide who got to infect his mind with nightmares of the past.
The scenery began to change. The world of colors and space shifted into something he was much more familiar with. A floor, tables, and booths popped into existence along with a body for Jaune. Not his own body, but one he was familiar with.
It was the body of the first echo to haunt his dreams. The guy who got drunk, hit on women in the worst way, and would meet his end crushed under a car. Whether it was coincidence or because of a strange connection, Jaune was back where it started.
He looked around, which he was able to do freely this time around, and saw that all the other bar patrons were acting strange. The barkeep was completely frozen while the couple in the back had already started the confrontation despite not having been confronted yet. The entire place was also shifting around like none of the furniture could decide where it was supposed to be.
It was all very surreal, but that was to be expected and Jaune didn't have time to gawk. He could still feel the pulls and now he had a body to approach them. Jaune left the bar and walked into what felt like an abstract painting. Mt. Glenn was barely recognizable as Remnant architecture let alone place people had built and would live in. Shapes resembling building were stacked and twisted into each other. People and cars were phasing through buildings as they traveled along every dimensional axis. The sky was a patchwork of different sun positions and cloud coverage.
The madness of trying to merge all these separate memories was on full display. Jaune wondered how he was ever going to be able to navigate it to find his target. He didn't have to worry about that for long, though, since suddenly he was in a dining room with an old woman yelling at him.
Then he was back out on the streets facing down a grimm while holding a shovel. The grimm lunged, but before Jaune could swing the shovel, he was in the underground, wrestling with a mass of screaming civilians.
The jumps were similar to what he experienced while under the control of that special echo, but these were happening in rapid fire. He couldn't even get his bearings before he was whisked away to another corrupted memory.
Not only was it annoying, but it would be impossible to track down his target, let alone gain any information from it. The pulls weren't useful if they kept rearranging every seven seconds.
There had to be a way to navigate this chaos. It was his mind, after all. He should be able to traverse it however he liked. A person's mind was their kingdom where anything they imagined was true. Maybe, he just needed to remind himself of that.
My name is Jaune Arc. I'm undoubtedly sharing…
Unfortunately, no matter how many times he repeated those words, or how hard he believed in himself, the jumping did not stop. He didn't have a single bit of control over what happened to him.
Right now, he was in a cave, around a fire, with a few others listening to the sounds of rummaging grimm, but soon that would change. He needed a plan and he needed one fast because right now he was just be thrown around.
Although wasn't that to be expected, Jaune thought as the scenery changed once again. Even if this was his own mind, it was him against hundreds. Could he really be expected to win?
The shoulders of his current body slumped. Maybe this was a pointless fight. The plan had been to slip through all the chaos, but instead he had been caught inside of it which, in retrospect, had been a very likely outcome. At least this miscalculation wasn't life-threatening. The constant jumps were annoying but they weren't doing any real harm. Emerald would eventually wake him up and he'd be free. He'd wouldn't have gained anything but it wasn't looking like he would lose anything either. With how unstable this whole plan had been he could probably count that as a victory.
What were they supposed to do if this failed, though? Would they really just have to risk it and head back to Vale? Staying at Mt. Glenn wasn't an option. While Echoes didn't do any physical damage when they attacked, the mental strain they were causing Emerald and he would do just a good a job of killing them indirectly.
If only they had a way to protect their minds from being invaded. Actually, why did the echoes invaded in the first place? Not the special one that knocked them out before the train tunnel, that one was a different case, but the normal ones that could only haunt their dreams. What did they gain from doing that? As far as Jaune knew they couldn't actually possess his body and make it their own. He was sure that would have happened on their first night here if they could.
Was it really just to kill them by drawing grimm to their negativity? If it was it was a really ineffective strategy. Unlike the one in front of the train tunnel, regular echoes couldn't knock them out whenever. They had to wait till he or Emerald was asleep and by then they would have already set up a defense to alert them if grimm did come charging in.
Sure, it was possible those echoes just didn't have any other way to try, but Jaune just couldn't see what they could achieve from killing the two humans who wander into Mt. Glenn. He refused to believe they were just mindless drones doing this for no reason, either. The evidence was right in front of him.
The shifting sea of memories of those long dead. Each trying to be the one to wiggle their way into his brain. If an echo didn't have something to gain from being the one to come out on top then why would it bother trying? Just what could that be, though?
Jaune racked his brain but he just couldn't come up with an answer. What if he worked in reverse? How did knowing their memories affect him?
Negative emotions and wiriness were obvious, but what else? He guessed that he gained new experience even if they weren't very useful. He had also learned more about the kind of place Mt. Glenn was before the tragedy. He had gotten a feel for the cites daily life, and experienced the harrowing sensation of living in an underground shelter. He knew the names and faces of people who had passed one before he was born…he remembered them.
Was that what all this was about?
Jaune couldn't stop himself from making a sound that was too sad to be called laughing. After all this thinking and worrying, did all they want was to be remembered? They plagued him with memories so he would know who they were. Ha, the nightmares probably hadn't even been intentional. It was just all these echoes had to make their desperate call. The last memories of a life that no one knew about. Nobody except themselves.
Jaune felt reinvigorated. This wasn't a pointless battle. Navigating the chaos wasn't an impossible task. If the echoes were fighting over who he remembered, he could easily choose a victor.
My name isn't Jaune Arc. It's Richard Cube, a worthless drunk that pesters women and thinks the world owes me.
The current scenery fell apart and was replaced by a familiar—a very familiar bar. "Hey, I'm out over here! You going to get me a refill?" he shouted to the barkeep who came over to examine him.
The couple in the back were trading flirtatious comments, and all the furniture was staying in one place. One minute passed and then two and still no jump. He was stable where he was, but that wasn't good enough. The strongest pull still felt too far away. He needed to get closer. Moving his physical body wouldn't do anything. He needed to get closer to the memories of that echo, and he had a good idea of where to start.
Jaune closed his eyes and imagined a fully constructed underground city under attack by grimm. People were scared and running into a train tunnel, trying to get to safety. There was screaming and crying and cursing.
Jaune felt his head throb as what he imagined was filled in and edited by an echo who was remembering. A connection was being formed between his generic fantasy and the echo's specific experience.
Now he was in the train tunnels running alongside a group of others, the grimm right on their heels. The lights were flickering and an explosion rocketed somewhere far behind them. A woman tripped and was quickly pounced on by grimm. She started screaming for someone to help her. He kept running determined to make it to safety even as he listened to the sound of flesh being ripped from her bone.
The pull was stronger here and that mysterious smell had worked its way into the air, but Jaune wasn't there yet. He was just a little bit off. Looking around, Jaune spotted a huntsman who despite being charged to protect them was running just as hard as anyone else. His pull was strong, not as strong as the strongest, but far stronger than any of the other nearby.
Jaune tried to imagine what it would be like to look through his eyes. The eyes of huntsmen cast into a situation far beyond his depth.
The pounding in Jaune's head grew to very uncomfortable portions as the connection between imagination was even flimsier than before, but Jaune still made it. The scenery was largely the same, but now the huntsman was widely swinging a polearm at a number of grimm. There was no use in running anymore. The way back to Vale had been blocked by several tons of rubble, courtesy of a well-placed explosion.
The huntsman had shallow the bile in his throat as he thought about just who was responsible. What remained of the citizens of Mt. Glenn were trying to dig their way through while he and a handful of huntsmen tried to hold off the horde, but it was a pointless endeavor. They had been sentenced to die.
It was a tragedy and worse a betrayal, but it was all in the past. There was nothing Jaune could do to about it. There were only three things he was thinking about right now: the increasing pain in his head, the overwhelming stench in the air and the overpowering pull nearby.
He craned his head to spot the echo he was surely looking for. With every degree his head turned, the pain grew by a couple notches, but it was worth it when his eyes finally landed on the source of the pull.
It was a painfully average man wearing a white business shirt and grey pants. He was digging as feverishly as the rest, but there was an anger in his posture that wasn't present in the others. His hands were coated red with blood and he seemed to be digging more down than out. Jaune couldn't make out much more than that since this person was only a background element in the huntsmen's memory, but it was enough to make another jump. Should be easy with how strong the pull already was.
"Get lost."
But, of course, nothing could be that easy. While Jaune felt himself being pulled in, paradoxically, he also felt something trying to push him away. Like a kid holding two magnets as close together as he could without letting them touch.
His head felt like it was going to explode, but Jaune kept pushing on.
"Get lost!"
It was so close. He was winning, he could tell. Just a little bit more.
"Fuck off!"
My name isn't Jaune Arc. It's…
"Jaune! Jaune! Wake up! Get up!" Jaune's eyes snapped open as something violently shook his body. He felt lightheaded and the shaking made him want to vomit, so he rolled over and did.
"Jaune, you're awake! Are you alright?" Emerald said, placing and hand on his back and helping him into somewhat of sitting position.
"Why did you wake me?" he rasped feeling like something crawled into his mouth and had gotten stuck in his throat. "Did an hour go by?"
Emerald quickly went to get him a water bottle which he graciously accepted still feeling rather dizzy. "Try more like twenty minutes. Everything was going fine for a while, but then your body suddenly started to convulse and you were bleeding."
"Bleeding?"
"Can't you feel it?" Emerald asked pointing to her nose.
Jaune brought his hand up to his face and when he pulled it away it was stain with blood. It wasn't just coming from his nose either. Blood was also running down the side of his neck from his ears.
Before Jaune could even ask for it, Emerald handed him a cloth. He gladly took it and wiped his face. It appeared the bleeding had stopped but there was still more blood than Jaune was comfortable with.
"Thanks for waking me," he said once he was finished.
"You don't seem very happy about that," Emerald observed.
"It's not that. It's just I was right there. I had caught him. If only I had gotten a little more time."
"So, your plan was a bust?"
"Not quite. I did get one vital piece of information before I was cut off."
"And that was?"
"Jett Flake, the name of that special echo."
Echoes were beings comprised of a person's last memories and negative emotions, that was how Jaune explained it to him, but clearly there was a misconception. How did one determine when a person was experiencing their last memories? The only way to know for certain was when the person was already dead, and by then it was too late for them to create anything.
Someone could be living through the most traumatic experience of their life and believe with all their heart that it's their final moments only to later wake up, in a hospital, and told they still had a long healthy life ahead of them. That being the case, it was entirely possible for an echo to exist with the owner still being very much alive. Maybe that's what made Jett Flake's echo so special. An experience that cursed his soul so thoroughly it tricked the universe into believing him dead.
That sounded like the makings of a powerful creature if Whitley ever heard one.
Jaune had explained everything to him in their last check-in, making up for the one he missed, and what a story it had been. It was almost a shame that Jaune was planning to destroy these echoes. He would have loved to study them, but he would just have to be content with the task Jaune assigned to him.
A quick search of Mr. Flack's records and the revelation that the man was still alive probably would have been sufficient for what Jaune required, but Whitley was a perfectionist. He wanted to meet with the man himself and get the full story. Luckily, he wasn't hard to find and was surprisingly close by.
The Icebox, Atlas', and the world's, sturdiest maximum security prison. Home to Remnant's most dangerous criminals: rouge huntsmen, crime bosses, serial killers, terrorists. They all found a home in the Icebox since Vale, Mistral, and Vacuo all shipped their worst there, and for whatever reason, Ironwood was all too happy to accept them. At least this time, Ironwood's asinine policy worked to Whitley's benefit.
Normal people weren't allowed visitations, but Whitley wasn't a normal person and with Ironwood and most of the militaries' senior staff procedure was much laxer than normal. This wasn't to say that the Icebox's security was undermined. Whitley still had to undergo a substantial search and was escorted by no less than four guards through the bleak hallways of the facility. Weiss would have had a tantrum over the treatment, but Whitley knew these men were just doing their jobs.
He was eventually led to a man sealed away behind reinforced glass. Jett Flake did not look like a hardened criminal nor like a man who would attempt to bomb the Vale council. He was skinny and old with grey hairs popping out of his nearly bald head. His face was chiseled into an eternal scowl, his eyes glowed with a hateful passion, and Whitley just knew, he'd have an attitude to match.
Still, Whitley picked up the scroll while the man on the other side of the glass did the same. "What does a Schnee want with me?"
Whitley put on his best business smile. "I'm just here for a little research. I want to know what made you angry enough to turn to attempted terrorism."
"Shouldn't you already know. I never hid my reasoning."
Probably why you got caught before you could do anything, Whitley didn't say. "I did read the statements, but I want to hear it from you."
"And why should I tell you anything, rich boy? What do I get out of it?"
"A chance to vent. I'm sure you're just seething in here with no one to tell your story too. Well, I'm here and I'm listening."
"Get lost," Jett spat back.
"I will if you really want me to, but I guarantee this is your last chance to get your story out there. Pretty much everything about you was scrubbed from the public record since it had to do with Mt. Glenn. Nobody knows anything about you. You don't exist in the outside world, yet here I am, the soon-to-be heir of the SDC, willing to hear you out. Are you really going to pass that up?"
Jett bit his lip with his yellowish teeth, his eyes moving from Whitley to the side of the room like he would find his answer there. "What will you do with it if I tell you?"
"Like I said, I'm only here for research. Who knows what your story will lead to, but I'm sure someone will find it useful."
Jett took a few seconds to think it over, but Whitley already knew he had him. "Fine, I'll tell you. My wife was killed when the grimm invaded and forced the rest of us underground. It was just me and my son after that, and I did everything to get us back into Vale. I filled out forms and wrote letters, but despite us already being goddamn citizens, all my applications were denied if they ever got a response at all. Travel between Mt. Glenn and Vale was for business only, and those bastards on the council made sure that rule was enforced. They trapped us down there just so they wouldn't have to admit their expansion had failed and come up with an actual solution for once in their goddamn lives. All they ever think of is how high their popularity numbers are, and how much food they can shovel into their fat bodies."
"Just stick to the facts, please. I don't come here for your opinions," Whitley said stooping Jett from relaying his entire manifesto.
Jett shot him a glare, but that was it. "When the grimm did break into the underground, it was awful, but it was also the chance I needed. I took my son and we ran. No amount of political games would stop Vale from accepting us after that. The huntsmen that were there and the few that were sent in were quickly overwhelmed and any kind of structured evacuation was shot from the start. The only option was to make a straight shot to Vale using the train tunnel, and my son and I were far ahead of the pack when it came to that."
A stream of tears rolled down Jett's cheeks. "I really thought we were going to make. I believe in the light at the end of the tunnel, but the Vale council had different plans. In order to "protect" the people of Vale they blew the tunnel and caused a cave-in. Unfortunately, it just so happened to occur right on top my son and I. I somehow got out with only a few scratches, but he was buried. I dug and I dug and I dug until my hands bleed, but I didn't find him. The pain I felt—the pain I'm still feeling—was indescribable. I weep and yelled and cried and cursed and screamed. All I wanted was my son back, and if I couldn't have that then I was going to make the bastards that took him from me pay."
"So, what you're saying is that if your son hadn't died you wouldn't have tried to bomb a Vale council meeting. For instance, if you're son had come out of the rubble alive, you would've been ecstatic."
"If this is your idea of a joke, you can stop right now," Jett growled.
"No joke, I'm just asking."
"Of course, I would have been. What parent wouldn't?'"
"Alright, just one last question. How did you survive?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're were trapped in the train tunnel with a wall of dirt on one side and a pack of grimm on the other. How'd you escape when no one else could?"
Jett turned away. "You wouldn't believe me."
"You'd be surprised what I'd believe."
"It was an angel," Jett whispered, his cheeks turning slightly pick.
"Can you describe this angel?"
"I don't really know. It was hazy, looked almost like a person. It came to me just when I accepted the grimm were going to kill me. It reached out its hand and I took it. The next thing I remember is waking up in a grass field above the train tunnel. Once I figured out where I was, I hobbled my way to Vale and prepared my revenge."
"Interesting, so an angle saved you by somehow warping you through at least a hundred feet of rock and dirt, or it could have made you intangible and carried you through, I suppose."
"You think I'm crazy or just dreamed the whole thing, don't you?"
"Of course, you're crazy, only an idiot would try to kill the Vale council, but you can't dream you're way out of a death trap. Although with what's been going on at Mt. Glenn maybe it's not completely impossible," Whitley said more to himself than to Jett.
"Wait, what's going on in Mt. Glenn?"
"Thank you for your story. It was very insightful information. I hope you have a good day Mr. Flake."
"Hang on! I asked you—" Whitley hung up the phone that facilitated their communication and ignored the pounding on the glass. Guards quickly came to collect the enraged man while Whitley was escorted out.
If it hadn't already, Whitley would have warned him that his temper would get him in trouble one day. It wasn't that Whitley was unsympathetic to his story, he had a heart, but everything that had happened was in the past and he had his sights on the future. If nothing else, Jett had given him some new ideas to experiment with, but before that he needed to report back to Jaune. He definitely needed to hear about this.
It had been a worthwhile trip.
They had everything they needed. With the information Whitley obtained, they knew who the special echo was and exactly what Emerald needed to show him. All that was left to do was put it in motion. They just had to get Emerald to Jett Flack's echo, and even though they couldn't see it, it was clear where it be.
Jaune gazed at the train tunnel that he and Emerald had tried to enter yesterday. He had already suspected it, but Whitley's information confirmed it. Jett's echo was guarding the train tunnel, and it was easy to figure out why. It didn't want anyone messing with Flake's son's burial site. Which meant that if they got there not only would Jett's echo be guaranteed to be there, but they would be in the perfect place for Emerald to weave her illusion.
The only hurdle left was getting through the train tunnel without being put to sleep. There was no surefire way to prevent that, but Jaune had a working theory and knowing that it could happen was half the battle. As long as the two of them kept up their awareness they should be fine.
"Are we ready to set off or are you waiting for something to go wrong?" Emerald asked, for her spot on the train they had just finished building.
Alright, calling it a train was like calling a paper airplane an airship. Really all they had made was a self-propelling handcar. Jaune didn't have vast technical knowledge, but even he, with generous help from Emerald, could make a platform with four wheels and slap on a motor to make it move. The parts were easy to find since they had the train station, and their supplies already contained spare dust crystals to power it. In addition, their little creation was outfitted with some small floodlights, which were abundant in an underground city, and an etch to provide them with some extra defense against Jett's echo.
This etch was the exact opposite of the one he used to snag the echoes, pushing mind away instead of pulling it in. Sadly, it wasn't nearly as effective as the other one since the little amount of sleep he had gotten last night had still been plagued by echo induced nightmares, even after he had come up with the idea. Jaune suspected the difference was because in the original experiment the echoes already wanted to get into his head while they would activity fight against the effects of this etch. Still, any amount of protection was helpful.
"You're spacing out again," Emerald called.
"Sorry, I'll be right there." There really wasn't any more reason to delay. Jaune walked towards their vehicle, but was suddenly hit by a dizzy spell. His hand jumped to his forehead and he stumbled around a bit before catching himself.
"Are you okay," Emerald said about ready to hop off the cart to join him.
He held out a hand to stop her. "I'm fine," he replied even as he noticed a couple of droplets of blood leak from his nose to the ground.
This had happened on and off ever since he delved into his mind. The episodes never lasted more than a few seconds, but they weren't lowering in intensity or frequency which concerned him.
Not wanting to give Emerald anything to worry about, though, he quickly boarded their makeshift vehicle, took a seat across from his partner, and started the motor. It hissed like a dying cat as it was put to work for the first time in decades, but slowly the wheels did turn and move them forward.
The wheeled platform clunked into the train tunnel as the two of them waited in silence, taking a quick glance of their surroundings now that they were illuminated by the floodlights. "Looks like we made it in," Jaune said.
"You don't know. You might already be caught in a dream, talking to a fake Emerald."
Jaune held out his hand and his journal appeared in it like normal. "I think I do know," he said.
"Show off," Emerald huffed.
The cart drifted along at a steady pace. In all honesty, it would have been faster if they ran, but there were several reasons that Jaune had insisted they travel this way. For one, by following the tracks, and with all their lights, there was no way they could get lost. Second, they could always be looking at each other this way. The reason they had both been caught last time was because they hadn't been focused on each other, or so Jaune believed. Regardless, it didn't seem likely that Jett's echo could have knocked them both out at the exact same time. If they kept their eyes on each other the entire time, then the moment one of them drifted off the other could quickly wake them up, and start a game of keep away.
Even if that didn't work, and they both got caught again, the fact they were on a cart would mean they'd still be moving forward. They were going slow enough to where they wouldn't end up as bloody smears if they crashed into rock blockade while they were unconscious. Then it was only a matter of Emerald breaking free with her semblance and already being in the position to erase the echoes for good.
Jaune thought it was a pretty solid plan.
The only problem would be running into grimm, but that was a risk no matter what they did and there wasn't a good way to avoid it. Luckily, there hadn't been any in the tunnel so far which was odd considering the tunnel should have been the most despair inducing place in all of Mt. Glenn.
The lack of grimm wasn't the only thing that was missing either, and from the way Emerald was shifting, she had noticed it too. "I don't feel anything," she said.
"We didn't feel anything when we were first knocked out either," Jaune reminded her.
"But even back things had felt off, and have you noticed, the smell isn't as potent."
Jaune had noticed, but it hadn't really been something he thought to bring up. It wasn't like they could do anything about it. "Maybe my etch is working better than I thought."
"What if it's planning something, waiting for us to get far enough into where we can't turn around?"
"What could it be planning. The only option it has is to try and invaded our brains. If it can't do that, it's completely helpless."
"I guess I'm just finding it hard to believe that it will be over soon."
"You make it sound like we've been here for years instead of two and a half days," Jaune teased.
"It feels like we have," Emerald replied.
They returned to their relative quiet doing nothing but thinking to pass the time. No grimm and no attempts of mind invasion. It wasn't until an hour into that journey that they spotted something. A skeleton laying on the tracks.
"Should we move it?" Emerald asked.
As much as Jaune would like to, it probably wasn't a good idea. It would require at least one of them to hop off which It would give Jett's echo the perfect opportunity to attack if it really was waiting in the tunnel.
Jaune just whispered an apology that doubled as a pray as they cart rolled over the corpse, crushing brittle bones under its wheel. It wasn't to be the last corpse they saw, the farther they went the more corpses there were. They rode over at least two more bodies of the deceased, each given way in their own distinctive crunch. The only good news was that the uptick in bodies probably meant they were close to the end of the line.
Sure enough, it came not ten minutes later. A solid wall of rocks and dirt. It looked unchanged from when Jaune had seen it years prior. The only difference was the lack of grimm and the lack of people.
He cut the motor and the cart slowly drifted to a stop, the one sound in the entire tunnel coming to an end. They just sat there for a bit, neither one of them wanting to disembark. "What should we do?" Emerald asked.
Jaune sighed, and took the first steps off their cart. Away from the etch and away from their connected sight.
Still nothing.
His journal appeared in his hand and disappeared the same as always. "I don't know," he finally admitted. The whole plan had relied on Jett's echo being here if it wasn't then there wasn't any point. They may as well have ridden the world's lamest amusement park ride for all it mattered.
"Maybe we should start poking that wall of rumble," Emerald suggested, jumping off the cart to be beside him. "If we really start messing with the son's burial site, then I'm sure the echo couldn't ignore it."
"Might as well give it a shot."
But, they didn't make it more than a few steps before the entire atmosphere changed. The tunnel seemed to grow colder and narrower, the smell was back to full force and the words "get lost" cut through the air.
Jaune and Emerald twisted around, more on instinct than anything else, and saw a plume of dark smoke that had the faint shape of a person. Jaune tried to summon his journal and Emerald tried to use her semblance to disturb the world only for Jaune's journal to come to him without problems and Emerald's semblance finding nothing to disrupt.
There was only one conclusion.
"We aren't caught in a dream!" Emerald yelled.
"I realize that," Jaune shouted back.
The metal rail of the train track groaned before it decoupled itself and shot its way towards them. Jaune barely had time to bring his shield up before the steel snake crashed into him. Emerald was forced to dodge away as another one rushed forward.
"What happened to echoes being completely harmless in the physical word!"
"That was before I knew Jett's was part poltergeist!"
The rail Jaune was blocking coil back before going in for another strike. This time the impact pushed him back as he felt his bones rattle. Still, he stayed on his feet and swung his sword in a counter attack.
The results weren't as he hoped. His sword bounced off without leaving a scratch. He tried to reposition himself, but a third rail join its brother, and this time Jaune was sent flying. His back hit the wall of rumble, causing a portion of it to fall away.
Emerald wasn't doing much better on her end. While she was agile enough to evade her own set of twisting snakes, her weapons were doing just as much as Jaune's had been. That was to say they weren't doing anything. At one point, she tried shooting a few rounds at Jett's echo, but that ended as expected by just going right through it.
"Use your semblance on it!" Jaune shouted as he ducked under a strike that tried to crave his head in.
"I need time to concentrate for that which I can't really do right now!" Emerald jumped onto one of the rails, almost riding it, but she was forced off when the other ran itself along the edge of the one she was on.
"Get lost!" the cavern seemed to say.
"We're trying to help you, damn it!" Jaune blocked and diverted snake only to get grazed by the other. His aura protected him, but it tripped him up enough to where he couldn't avoid the twisted snake's return trip. His shieldless side had to take the brunt of the impact as he was knocked back once again.
This was bad. Neither of them could hope to cut through solid steel with their weapons alone, and the ringmaster was completely immune. Emerald needed time to weave her semblance, but in order to get that time they needed to put a halt to the rampaging snakes for a bit. Which they could only do if they stopped Jett's echo with Emerald's semblance. Basically, they were trapped.
Frantically, he looked around for anything he could use until his eyes landed on the cart they rode in one. He sprinted towards it, barely sidestepping a possessed rail as it shot down from above. The cart wasn't that heavy, so when Jaune got close, a solid kick was enough to send it rolling down towards the echo.
It was slight but Jett's echo did react to the etch marked into the cart. The smoke bent back like it was been blown by the wind, and for just a moment, the rail snakes froze. "Emerald, now!"
"On it."
Emerald stopped to concentrate, but Jett's echo recovered far too quickly by simply moving back a few feet. His increased distance didn't hamper his control of the snakes in the slightest though. They struck with just as much ferocity as before, forcing Emerald to drop her semblance.
Jaune ran forward to give the cart another shove, but as he did, he was hit by another dizzy spell. "No, not now," he muttered. The two snakes, closing in on him, grew into a blurry four. With his head pounding and his senses of balance completely off, Jaune could only throw himself to the left and hope for the best.
The best did not happen. The rail smashed straight into his chest, carrying him into the air. Even through his aura it felt like his ribcage was going cave. Damn Whitley for making him give up his breastplate in the name of fashion.
Jaune slid off the tip of the rail before it could squash him against the ceiling, but doing that left him stranded in the air. There was nothing he could do as the other snake came around and swatted him.
This time he didn't just hit the wall of rubble, he was sent a good foot into it. He grabbed onto every rock he could to dig himself out, knowing that another steel beam strike was just around the corner. He didn't know how low his aura was but he knew couldn't take much more of those attacks.
It took him maybe fifteen seconds to emerge, but that felt way too long. He should have been clobbered in that amount of time. A painful grunt alerted him to why he wasn't. Jett's echo had apparently decided to divert the two snakes attacking him in Emerald direction giving her a total of four to deal with. It was a battle she was quickly losing.
He had to do something, but what? He probably had time to make an etch now, but he couldn't think of one that could put a stop to those steel monstrosities. No way would a standard sized fire etch be hot to melt them. Vines or ice wasn't going to be enough to hold them. Could he cause them to rust somehow?
Emerald avoid one snake, hopped over another, but took the third in the back. Her aura flared and she was sent to her knees, and Jett's echo wasn't going to give her a chance to get back up. The other three snakes closed in like a bird's talons.
Emerald wasn't going to be able to avoid that, Jaune realized. Terror seized him as his grip tightened on a rock he had forgotten he was holding. In a moment of desperation, he threw at Jett's echo.
It was only when it was sailing through the air that he saw it wasn't a rock at all but a human skull. His mind working overtime, Jaune shouted the only thing he thought might get the echoes attention, "Hey Jett, here's your son back!"
The smoke swayed a bit in motion that may have been turning, but the way all four of the snakes snapped forward to catch the skull made it clear that it had an effect. Jaune had no idea if that was really Jett's son's skull, but griped in parental panic, Jett's echo didn't question it, nor did it think about how four steel rails would probably be a worse cushion than just letting the skull hit the ground.
"Emerald, get started on the illusion again!"
"I'm not going to have enough time," she said getting back to her feet.
"I'll make time!"
"How!"
"Just do it."
Jaune didn't take the time to see what his partner was doing. His only thought was making it to the train cart as fast as possible. The whoosh of air behind him let him know that at least one of the snakes was back in pursuit. He was so close, it was only a couple feet away.
Pleases let this work. If he was wrong then it was over. He and Emerald would be buried down her like the rest of them.
The screech of metal bending in a way it wasn't supposed to condemn him to being a couple feet too far away. He wasn't going to make it, but maybe he didn't need to. Diving to the ground, the charging snake flew over and passed him crashing into their flimsy train cart, splitting it into pieces.
The only sources of light flickered out and the craven was cast into darkness.
Jett Flake could not see. The two that had dared to disturb his son's resting place were lost to him. He could still feel his guardians but he no longer knew where to send them.
Wait, now there was a light. It burst forth and he was back on that fateful day. He knew clawing at the rumble wouldn't bring his son back, but he did it anyway. Why wouldn't he? It might be futile but he was already dead, so he dug away.
He dug and he dug knowing he wouldn't find anything, but…but this time he.
A dirty little arm poked through the ground. Jett grasped onto it with all his might and pull up a dirt cover boy. He coughed and wheezed as he expelled debris from his throat and mouth.
"Dad?" He whispered. He was weak and hurt but he was alive. Jett hadn't failed. He clutched his son to his chest, and for the first time since his wife died, he cried.
"I'm right here. You're free now."
"Did it work?"
"I think so. The smell is gone and there are no train rails trying to kill us."
"Are you sure?"
"No, I'm not sure! I can't see anything. If someone didn't knock out the lights maybe I could—owwwww! I just smashed my foot into something! Would you hurry it up?"
"I'm working in it. I can't see anything either. Oh wait, I think I found it." The flashlight in Jaune's hand clicked to life. Nowhere near as bright as their cart setup, but at least they could see. The train rails that had been attacking them were now stuck in place like an abstract art sculpture, and there was no sign of the smoky being. "I think we really did it."
Emerald walked up and collapsed to her knees letting out a heavy sigh. "Thank Oum, I can't wait to get out of here. I'm ready for that break you were talking about. I think about two years will be enough time for me to recover."
"We'll see," Jaune laughed, reaching out his hand to help Emerald up. "Let's go home."
Excerpt from the book (Jaune's notes)
If the anomalies surrounding the echoes at Mt. Glenn proved one thing, it is that echoes are not made up of only negative emotions and last memories. They also have desires. Desires to escapes their current situation. I suspect the echoes at Mt. Glenn had been waiting for someone to free them. It's why they somehow recorded the arrival and departure of every living visitor in an old train terminal. Echoes aren't evil nor do most of them want to cause any harm. They just seek to protect what's theirs, like any human of faunus would, whether that be their memories or a son they failed to save.
As for the specifics on how the Mt. Glenn echoes gained their unusual powers, it was probably a combination of their sheer number and the unrelenting will of Jett Flake. Echoes formed of the still living probably aren't actually that uncommon. It is simply that no caretaker as even bothered to look into that detail. Normally there is no need to delve into the echo's history and give them closer to dispel them, and in a way, that's kind of sad.
Echoes form a collective mind, so to speak, so it wouldn't be surprising that the first generation of Mt. Glenn echoes, created when the main city fell, passed on the knowledge of their unceremonious existence to the ones created when the underground city collapsed. It was that unwillingness to flicker out that led them to be capable of doing something about it. In Jett Flake's case that evolved into the power affect the physical world when the mental word failed to stop us.
An: This chapter was so hard to write. Going into the mental world was a lot more complicated than it was in my head. I was constantly worried that I was just vomiting words onto the page. At least it's finally over and so is this arc, and I have to say, despite all the trouble I had, I think this might be the best conclusion of an arc yet. I'll let the reviews inform if I'm right or not.
Next chapter is going to be a special one, so get excited for that. I know I am.